


What Makes A Home

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Confused Javert, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, a what-if valjean never stole au, fuzzy canon context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: A young Javert is given his first cottage, and attempts to turn it into a home. The cat helps. The almost-thief he accidentally rescues from an almost-crime? He offers the one thing Javert's home truly needs: warmth.Pure fluff.





	What Makes A Home

Javert had just finished straightening his very first house. Well, perhaps more of a cottage than a house, but a home all the same. It sat inland of the sea, which meant it was nicer, as far as cottages went, in his little village, close to the jail where he worked, and not too far from the city where he'd trained to become a police guard. The simple wooden floor had been swept, the small bedroom dusted, and his three books placed on a shelf he’d built himself. He couldn’t shake the feeling something was missing. Whatever it was, it would have to wait. He’d start work tomorrow, patrolling the prison. Tomorrow would be a long day, the first of many, but at least he had his cottage. 

It was a simple, sparse place, but it was home.

A strange word to him. He’d never had one before. There had been the wet, cold place that housed his earliest memories, a place he hadn’t known to call a jail, not then. Then, his memory fragments, and he remembers little for a good deal of time. Sister Genevieve said that was an effect from the fever he’d had when he’d been left on the nunnery doorstep. She’d tried to give him the best home she could in that simple little infirmary, while he’d healed, and learned to read.

It was that second thing, though, that had given him a much better home. Orphans who could read tended to land on their feet much better than others. Orphans who could read, and weren’t afraid of anything, could find work helping police officers root out the criminal underbelly of the city.

Orphans who worked hard were rewarded with homes in the military barracks, and futures full of hope. Hard work, and long hours, but hope too.

* * *

 

Weeks later, he headed home for his first three day leave, a much-needed break from the duties of a prison guard. He wished he was headed back to a cottage that would be a little more… homey than what he had, but he pushed that thought away as a fool’s. What more did he need, than a roof over his head and a warm fire? Even if he could not shake the thought his home lacked something, he needed to be grateful for all he had.

In fact, what better time than now, to take a moment to be grateful for it all. He lifted his gaze, just before reaching his cottage, to look up at the glittering stars, crystalline in the winter night sky. They shone, as they always had, and always would. Each of them belonged exactly where it lay that night. Each one was home.

When he opened his front door, a little black shadow darted through ahead of him. He had no idea, that the small cat, was about to change the course of his destiny.

Over the next day, the cat, which he refused to name because that was simply too frivolous, charmed him into an offering a bowl of milk, and scraps of fish. It came to be a constant presence in his home, something to come home to each night. He caught himself bringing along fatty bits of liver from the butcher, just to appease the feline master of his home. The cat claimed his only comfortable chair, and Javert could not find it in himself to mind, because when it purred, the sound reverberated in his own ribs.

All was good in that small cottage, that place that did not quite feel like home, but was more of a home than any he'd ever had, until one night, when he’d forgotten to pull the bread from the oven. Thick black smoke bloomed out, and Javert threw open a window.

The cat darted out, melding into the smoke and the night. Without thinking, after only ensuring the fire was contained, that the cottage would not burn, Javert raced after his cat.

He wove through dark city streets, the same he sometimes walked on patrol, until he found the cat perched in the window of a bakery, no doubt enjoying the warmth of the window.

There was someone else enjoying the warmth.

Or maybe not enjoying. 

Just… trying to get by.

He knew that feeling all too well.

The young man was dressed in rags, and he was shaking. Staring up at both the cat and the bread, just beyond the window.

Javert scooped up the cat first, and then, turned to face the young man. “Have you a home?” his voice came out the way he’d practiced to ensure that it would. Crisp. Professional. No trace of any low-class slur clinging to his vowels. 

“Stayin’ with my sister. They’re… she an’ her kid. They’re hungry.” The man’s gaze kept sliding past Javert’s face, up to that loaf of bread in the window. 

“I see.” He couldn’t fold his arms, not while holding the cat, but he tried to straighten his posture. “Well. The bakery won’t open 'til tomorrow, so you might as well come with me.”

Pretending that was why the man was standing there, looking at the bread the way Javert sometimes looked at the stars. Pretending the man wasn't holding a rock in one hand, and yet, relieved enough to mutter a silent prayer when he dropped the rock.

It was foolish, and more frivolous than naming a cat would have been, but Javert decided to trust the man. At least for the night. Tomorrow, he would send him back to his home.

* * *

 

The man sighed with relief when Javert pushed open the door to his simple home. The banked fire kept the room plenty warm enough, a haven from winter's chill. Javert shut the door behind them, and then, let the cat out of his arms, then turned to study the man. They were close to the same age, he realized. 

This is what he could have become, had other choices not been presented to him. The realization sank down, deep into him, utterly melting and changing a heart that had started to harden with his weeks of work.

“Sit,” he told the man. “What’s your name.”

“Jean.” He paused. “Jean Valjean, I guess.”

It was a better name than Javert’s own. His last name was the only name he knew. The first, Michel, given to him years after his birth, by a well-meaning nun. He prefers just his surname. It’s simpler that way.

He liked simple.

Now, to find a simple solution for this problem… “You might as well stay here tonight. Tomorrow, you can purchase that bread and be on your way.”

“With what coin?” he let out a tired bark of a laugh.

“Why, your reward for finding my cat, of course.” He paused, rustled in his pocket for a few small coins, and passed them over. “There you are. My hearth is yours for the night. There are some winter apples in the kitchen if you’re hungry.”

If. 

Of course, he was. Javert had yet to forget that monster of hunger that used to claw his insides, used to make him ache worse than any punishment. Maybe in time he would no longer remember it, no longer understand how it could drive one mad with wanting, but for now, he knew both hope and hunger in equal measures.

And he found he wished to offer the same to Jean Valjean.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “after you see to your sister, I do have some errands to do. I could use a hand chopping wood. You look strong.”

“I am.” 

“Good.” He nodded curtly. “Then, consider yourself hired.”

“Me?” Valjean tapped his chest. “Why would you want a man like me?”

“Because,” Javert said crisply, turning on his heel, “my cat likes you.”

* * *

 

And it turned out to be as simple as that. Each day, Valjean completed household tasks, swept, cooked, and ensured the little cottage remained tidy in exchange for coins. Each night, Javert came home to him. They ate dinner together, and then, Valjean would see to his sister.

Valjean’s hunger did fade into hope, and Javert had the pleasure of watching it appear in the man’s eyes, as brilliant as the first stars in the night sky.  What Javert had not expected was for his own hunger to grow. Not the sort that could be sated with any meal. Instead, he craved Valjean’s company, found himself dreading the end of dinner. 

Months into their arrangement, after a meal of roast duck, Javert said, “Valjean, wait.”  The man turned around. True to his word, he was strong and had only gotten stronger with proper meals. His muscles rippled under his simple cotton shirt, and his blue eyes were all the brighter in his rugged face.    Javert found that same hungry desperation once again racing through his veins, as those eyes locked onto his. “I… I was wondering if you might like to stay.”

“Stay?” Valjean took a step forward.

Javert backed up, just a little. Or he’d thought it was only a little until his back bumped into the table. “Yes. Stay. Here, with me.”

“For how long?”

Javert wet his lips, tasting the remainder of the wine, and something even sweeter. Hope. Valjean hadn’t simply said no. “For as long as you’d like.”

A long moment passed. The cat, growing bored with the lack of table scraps she’d been given, leaped off her chair, and wound her way around Valjean’s legs. He cursed, stumbling forward. Javert, acting on instinct, caught him.

Held him, tightly. Held him, the way he had learned to hold onto all good things. Held him, and asked, “if you’d like to, that is. Stay with me?”

Valjean looked down at him. For a moment, he experienced the terrible pain of imagining how wrong this could have all gone. If someone else had found the man, minutes after Javert would have. If Valjean had become a convict, if… if...if

He couldn’t wonder anything else, because Jean Valjean was kissing him. Kissing him with hope and hunger and happiness, all three twined together in an aching exchange, lips against lips, skin against skin. Javert sighed, only for a moment, before returning the kiss, with all his stubborn insistence.

They stayed like that for a long time. Together. They were together.

Only now, with someone else here, holding him, did he truly, finally, realize his little cottage needed nothing else. It was perfect.

He was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Comments are always welcome :)


End file.
